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Coordination between agents.
At several points during the event handling process, agents need to communicate with one another. This may involve informing agents of events or responses, asking for help or information, or negotiating to iron out inconsistencies in information or to agree on a course of action.

In many domains, including the AUV domain, communication is not as straightforward as it might seem. For example, in the AUV domain communication most often takes place by broadcasting messages over an acoustic link. Issues arise of limited communication channel bandwidth and overheard messages giving rise to unintended event-handling behavior on the part of the ``eavesdroppers''. In addition, communication needs to be incorporated into the broader context of group problem solving in a coherent manner. Turner and Turner (1991) describe one mechanism for this. In general, much work remains to be done.


rmt@cdps.umcs.maine.edu
Wed May 4 11:21:48 EDT 1994